Why is the Transurban share price languishing today?

It's been a day of red ink on the ASX boards so far this Wednesday. At the time of writing, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) has slid by a painful 1.3% and is now back under 6,700 points. But it's also been a disappointing day for the Transurban Group (ASX: TCL) share price. Or so it would seem.

Transurban shares are presently going for $14.33 each. That's 1.3% down from the $14.52 the toll road operator closed at yesterday. But shareholders shouldn't be too put out by that. That's because today is the day that Transurban shares have traded ex-dividend for the company's upcoming final dividend.

As we covered earlier this week, investors who wanted to receive the company's latest dividend had to own Transurban shares before market close yesterday. With the company trading ex-dividend today, it means that any new shareholders from this Wednesday onwards are ineligible to receive this dividend.

Why is the Transurban share price falling today?

Because of this, the value of the dividend has now left the Transurban share price. That is why we are seeing a share price fall for Transurban shares today. Interestingly, if today wasn't Transurban's ex-dividend date, it's possible the shares would be in the green. The company had fallen by quite a bit less than the market earlier this Wednesday, even with the weight of the ex-dividend date.

So Transurban's final dividend will be welcomed by shareholders on 23 August. This will be a payment of 26 cents per share. That's a healthy increase over the interim dividend of 15 cents per share that investors received a few months ago on 22 February. It's also a meaningful rise over 2021's final dividend of 21.5 cents per share.

The Transurban dividend has been steadily increasing since the COVID-induced lockdowns forced a meaningful cut in 2020. Even so, this next dividend of 26 cents per share is still a long way from the company's last pre-COVID dividend of 31 cents per share.

Even so, this latest payment gives Transurban a dividend yield of 2.85% on current pricing.